1. Technical Field
The disclosure relates to an extract of Bupleurum as an active ingredient for treating or relieving inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
2. Description of the Related Art
The current medicament for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is commonly categorized into four groups, (1) immunosuppression drugs, such as azathioprine, cyclosporine or steroids, (2) therapeutic agents, such as sulfsalazine or 5-aminosalicylic acid (5-ASA), (3) biological agents for inhibiting specific inflammatory factors, such as infliximab or remicade, and (4) anti-diarrheal agents. However, these medicaments may not completely cure IBD and sometimes cause side effects.
A new generation of drugs for rheumatoid arthritis by inhibiting the tumor necrosis factor (TNF-α) has also been used for the treatment of IBD, such as etanercept, adalimumab, or the like. These drugs show good drug effects during a short period of time and immune tolerance, but due to its price, intravenous injection, a potential immunoresponse and limited test data, clinical use has been limited.
Bupleurum is a medicinal plant recorded in a Chinese herbal medicine book, Shennong bencao jiing. It is traditionally used for relieving fever, pain and inflammatory diseases and treating irritations, infections causing fever, thirst, jaundice and hepatitis, etc. The Bupleurum root is known for its medicinal effect and has been chemically isolated. Saikosaponin, longispinogenin, steroids, fatty oils, flavonoids and saccharides have been isolated from the extract of the Bupleurum root, in which saikosaponin is the primary component.
It is known that attempts have been made in biological medicine, to use Bupleurum in treating hepatitis. Nevertheless, no study or reference for using Bupleurum to treat IBD has been found. Accordingly, a specific extraction method of Bupleurum was used to develop a novel pharmaceutical composition and method for treating or relieving IBD, wherein the correlations between a Bupleurum extract and IBD were identified.